Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
The principle whose outcome is suffering is the ten wrong factors from wrong view to wrong freedom; the principle whose outcome is happiness is the ten right factors from right view to right freedom.
The most immediately felt vocabulary in this chapter's set
Where terms like “defiled” or “leads to accumulation” require some doctrinal background to fully parse, “suffering” and “happiness” need none at all — this discourse names the most universally, immediately legible stakes of the entire ten-factor teaching.
A promised register, finally delivered
AN 10.137's guide already anticipated this shift, noting that “beneficial and harmful” hinted at the suffering/happiness register this chapter would eventually make explicit; this discourse is that promised delivery, arriving as the tenth of eleven variations rather than earlier in the sequence.
Two discourses, nearly identical, closing the chapter together
This discourse and AN 10.144 immediately following it use two near-synonymous Pāli terms — dukkhudraya and dukkhavipāka, both translatable as roughly “resulting in suffering” — making them this chapter's closest pair, closer even than most of the other nine word-pairs are to each other.
Key terms
The text
Suffering as outcome, and happiness as outcome
§1“I will teach you the principle that has suffering as outcome, and that which has happiness as outcome. … And what is the principle whose outcome is suffering? Wrong view, wrong purpose, wrong speech, wrong action, wrong livelihood, wrong effort, wrong mindfulness, wrong immersion, wrong knowledge, and wrong freedom. This is the principle whose outcome is suffering. And what is the principle whose outcome is happiness? Right view, right purpose, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right immersion, right knowledge, and right freedom. This is the principle whose outcome is happiness.”
Self-check quiz
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